Call it the monster that ate its creator. The G.O.P.’s southern strategy (Wikipedia: “[A] Republican method of winning Southern states in the latter decades of the 20th century and first decade of the 21st century by exploiting racism among white voters.”) is eating the party alive before our eyes.
The relentless focus on Sotomayor’s arguably racist 2001 “wise Latina” comment — to the exclusion of issues, policy, even reason — is the latest case in point. NYT: “Four of the panel’s seven Republicans invoked the ‘wise Latina’ reference to criticize her.”
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” is what she said in 2001. Important social institutions should reflect the diversity of the country because judgment is shaped in part by experience is probably what she meant, as reflected by an impressive body of work over decades.
The broader political point, however, is that by hammering so hard on Sotomayor’s ethnicity and gender the G.O.P. may play to its base, but its hard to comprehend how this can be a basis for any return to national power in 2010. I can’t really see, for example, how today’s nationally publicized attack by white male Republican Senators on Judge Sotomayor can help Charlie Baker.
The Republican spin machine aims particularly well at the low information voter. The low information voter is happy to start sentences with phrases like “All I know is …” So for them focusing on one statement is precisely the right number of things to focus on. At least for appealing to their base.
In a related development, the (not-so) Young Republicans elected a new leader over whom a cloud of racism hangs.
… ‘playing the refs’ in the media has paid them so many dividends. Legitimizing ‘on-the-other-hand’-ism journalism and punditry legitimizes whatever they can get ‘out there’ and poisons the ‘common sense’ of the low information voter. The next thing you know you’ve got ‘The Curve’ book tour. I think those guys even made it on Donahue.
They know they can’t.
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p>They just want to throw a little bit of mud on her, so when a future Republican president appoints someone truly scary, and we say so, well, that’s just the way this stuff always goes.
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p>Or, applying Occam’s razor, they need to demonstrate to their base that they’re still kickin’.
The job of an opposition party is to oppose. Most instructive about this whole line is that the first/easiest way the Republicans oppose something they don’t like is to play the race card.
… opposition toward a public good. Opposing the nominee at this point is theater dedicated toward (they think) the development of the GOP brand, not toward the public good.
But I think part of the change the country voted for is cooperation. Doesn’t mean we act like weenies on healthcare, but it ought to mean they cut the president some slack.
BMGers, please take a moment to read something other than far-left moonbat blogs (BMG included.) You’ll find other explanations for the Republicans’ justified questioning of Sotomayor though I do not hold out hope that progressives could ever look beyond their own prejudices and ascribe anything but racist and ugly political motives in the hearts of others. (Where did you get that moral x-ray vision?)
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p>I think it’s totally valid to question whether Judge Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” comments might be a harbinger for the exact judicial activism which has damaged the rule of law but is what progressives crave, i.e., biased judicial considerations in lieu of legislation.
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p>What can be drawn from her recorded proclamations about making policy from the bench, most famously from her 2001 speech at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law?
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p>
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p>She pays lip service to “fairness and integrity based on the reason of law,” but then qualifies her faithfulness to the law by questioning whether ignoring racial differences from the bench is a bad thing.
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p>I want to know whether or not Judge Sotomayor will be color-blind on the bench, or give preferential judicial treatment based on ethnicity, race, etc., etc. Will she remove Lady Justice’s blindfold?
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p>I suppose if you believe it’s OK to to make judicial adjustments based on race, then you will only see racism in this line of questioning. Will that charge be leveled against me, too?
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p>
How about looking at her record rather than an isolated quote. Judges are humans, not robots; experience comes into play for everyone.
what makes “the white male perspective” the de facto neutral observer, and any other perspective de facto activism?
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p>On a nine member group, diversity of viewpoint adds quality. Even with Sotomayor, the SCOTUS will have seven men and seven whites. While it’s true that Sotomayor is neither helping increase religious diversity nor educational diversity, she is adding to the overall wealth of experience that another white man simply couldn’t provide.
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p>This line of thinking doesn’t justify nominating her — in fact, her high quality judicial record justifies nominating her. However, her identity does shape her perceptions, just like it does with white men as was pointed out during the Alito and Roberts hearings. Why does their mentioning their own experience (as white men) get a pass while Sotomayor referencing hers (as a Hispanic woman) result in cries of racism from white men?
that their race made them better jurors. Unlike Sotomayor.
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p>(Weren’t Alito and Roberts responding to a question when they admitted that while no one can avoid their identity, they simply try to do the best they can calling balls and strikes? Unlike Sotomayor, on tape.)
At Alito’s confirmation hearing, he said:
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p>Also, Sotomayor never said her background makes her a better jurist. She said it gave her a different perspective, not that it makes her better. Unlike Alito, she specifically rejects using her background as basis for any judicial decisions.
The underlying premise of your post, IMO: white, male judges are incapable of unbiased jurisprudence, and so need diversity to balance their opinions. As if there’s a Latino legal opinion needed to balance the white male legal opinion. Don’t forget black/female/Asian/Native American — male/female opinion. Is there transgender legal theory yet?
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p>I guess only robots can be fair (but can they empathetic?)
Let’s see. Perhaps I could write in a similar style.
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p>If you freed yourself from the talking point shackles you have graciously accepted from the Republican Party, you might go beyond speeches Justice Sotomayor has made to what she was hired for, namely, decisions and opinions. I know that in Wingnuttia, where they all talk to themselves and barely share one full, complete thought, it might be difficult to look at her actual opinions. Nonetheless, the open position is Judge not Speech Writer.
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p>All your rhetorical questions are then very easy to answer.
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p>By the way, this blog isn’t even particularly social democratic. It’s a sign of typical wingnut tribalism that you might think it “far-left moonbat”. I know, I know, you imagine only extremists would disagree with you.
I didn’t say she was unqualified because of her comments, only that they merit inquiring into her jurisprudential temperament, and that those inquiries are not racist.
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p>Even judges speak their minds, once in a while. Or have you jettisoned Obama’s tenant that “words matter”?
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p>BTW, I have indeed looked at some of her rulings, at least various analyzes of her rulings. By left and right legal experts both. Again, my post was only to refute the ad hominem racist charge ascribed to questions about the “wise Latina” remark.
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p>Just out of curiosity, kbusch, where on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being far left, 10 far right, do you place BMG?
… with inquiry. But mere inquirey isn’t what Bob was pointing out. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the point your rebutting is that Bob asserted that inquirey was racist, yes? I assume it’s from the following: “The broader political point, however, is that by hammering so hard on Sotomayor’s ethnicity and gender the G.O.P. may play to its base…”
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p>He’s not limiting himself to the hearing room here, but the GOP in general. Listening to the punditry and spokespeople on the right, it is clear that they are indeed employing a strategy of ‘hammering’. This goes well beyond inquiry. It’s theater.
except it’s all theater.
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p>For example, Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin’s comments were simply laughable, as if Sotomayor is the second coming of John Marshall or Oliver Wendell Holmes.
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p>I’m sure they felt their remarks were serious and important, comments made fully in the discharge of their responsibilities on the Senate Judiciary, just as their Republican colleagues do.
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p>But you don’t think Leahy’s and Durbin’s comments didn’t play to THEIR base? Of course they do.
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p>Perhaps you moral x-ray vision is better than mine, and you can see with clarity what is in the hearts of men. I defer to your opinion in that case.
… Leahy and Durbin’s theater isn’t obstructionism. Creating an ‘ethic’ of obstructionism as opposed to real debate and inquiry that can lead to conclusions that differ from the administration is why the GOP can’t get traction except from their base.
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p>Cheerleading isn’t very helpful certainly, but obstructionism for it’s own sake is actually harmful.
I take what you all say. My point however was that the Republican theater plays to a small base relative to the Democratic one. Thus my reference to Baker. It seems very I’ll advised if the party hopes to regain power in 2010 or 2012.
… the harm of the obstructionism that plays to their base is demonstrated in that base pandering can actually weaken the GOP constituency in the Northeast, and is demonstrative of the kind of rhetoric that caused the middle right to flee toward Independence or worse, to vote for Obama. This is the harm they do to themselves. My point was that because they weaken themselves this way, they do harm to all of us because honest inquiry and debate is a good thing in a representative democracy. They short-change debate by merely taking stances and spouting talking points organized around their identity politics.
That the Democrats don’t debate among themselves very well.
… its a problem of not debating each other well that we don’t form block coalitions as easily as the GOP. A lot of the GOP success in this area, no doubt, is owed to the particulars in the way the leadership handled vote fidelity. But on the other hand, the problem for the Democrats is also that they are the party that is more disposed to recognize shades of gray within issues, and tolerate other views within those shades of gray to the point where block coalitions become less cohesive than their GOP counterparts.
1.0Trotsky-Maoist amalgams, like the Spartacist League
1.5Maoists, like Bob Avakian
2.0Old-line communists, like Fidel Castro
3.0Euro-communists, German Party of the Left
4.0Fundi Greens
4.5Realo Greens
5.0Social democrats, like the Canadian NDP, the German Social Democrats, and the French Socialists
5.2Right-wing social democrats, like the British Labor Party.
5.5Radical liberals, like Kucinich and Chomsky
6.0Progressives, like most of the left blogspher
6.5Technocratic Democrats like Dukakis in 1988
7.0Conservative Democrats, like the Blue Dogs
7.2Eisenhower Republicans (all dead, this is a placeholder only)
7.5Collin Powell, David Brooks, and Republican Senators from Maine, Republican governors of blue states
8.0(This is a placeholder for another kind of missing Republican. Bob Dole in 1996, for example.)
9.4Ron Paul
9.5Boehner, McConnell, Cantor
9.8Palin
10.0Bachman, Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, O’Reilly
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p>We’re at 6. Slightly right of center.
…John Warner? Also, I wonder if Eisenhower Republicans and Conservative Democrats shouldn’t switch places because you’re using the blue dogs as your representative sample.
Bill Weld as 8.0?
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p>There have to be slots for things like the Christian Dominionists, monarchists and other supporters of mostly undemocratic rule, Islamists, then one might possibly, distinguish Ernst Röhm’s faction within the Nazis from Hitler’s and Himmler’s.
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p>What I find very curious is how hard it is to label factions within the current Republican Party. Is there any evidence that Crist, Pawlenty, Jindal, and Carcieri are any different from Boehner, McConnell, Pense, and Kyl?
… the 51% strategy is that it depends on lock step issue loyalty. The side effect is that they all start to become harder to distinguish from one another on policy stances, at least on national policies.
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p>I think of Weld as closer to the Maine delegation,… certainly closer to Brooks than Warner.
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p>What’s higher on the scale… Dominionists or non-Dominionists opportunist politicians willing to play dog whistle politics toward Dominionism?
Reminds me of Saul Steinberg’s View of the World.
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p>I’m saving it.
<table><tr><td>It takes a while typing all those HTML tags.</td></tr></table>
… in Excel and then past into notepad. Note that you either need to do some concatenation formulas and put the entirety of each line in one column or you need to replace the tab characters in notepad (which delineate where the column breaks were in Excel)
Senator Graham questioned Judge Sotomayor about a memo she signed as director of Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund urging the group to oppose the reinstitution of the death penalty in New York.
Senator Graham asserted that her anti death penalty position was
.
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p>Gallop polls show support for the death penalty dropping over the years, with opinion being evenly split as of 2006 between death penalty and life imprisonment.
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p>http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or…
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p>If you disagree with a Conservative, you are by definition – outside the mainstream.
Suppose you have an beleaguered institution A. Suppose you have a leader B of that institution who is also somewhat beleaguered.
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p>Isn’t there a well-known effect that B will spend a lot of effort maintaining her leadership of A and not feel as compelled to do what’s necessary to improve A’s standing?
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p>I’ve read that somewhere. It would fit with the current tendency within the GOP. If you want to get lots of attention and approval from within the party, if you want to shore up your position within the party, well, then, you can sound like Glenn Beck and that’s fine. Or you can continue sending out the coded racism that has been the meat and potatoes (as well as the soup, salad, apple pie, nuts, cognac, and cigars) of GOP messaging since Nixon campaigned on Law and Order.
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p>Trying to right the GOP risks one’s position inside it: criticizing Rush Limbaugh wins one few GOP friends.
How does this relate to Charlie Baker?
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p>Since when did the racism of the conservative branch of the GOP affect all the moderate RINOs we keep electing as governor? Weld was far more progressive on gay rights and women’s rights than his American Taliban brethren in the GOP and MA voters were smart enough to tell the difference giving him huge majorities even when they re-elected Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy. There was massive amounts of ticket splitting. To say that this hurts Charlie Baker is to presume that MA independents and Democrats tired of Deval are too stupid to tell the difference between the national GOP and the local one-its very dangerous to do so.
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p>In any case, I do think Sotomayor’s statements are being taken out of context and mischaracterized, that said even the Democrats are admitting this is somewhat of an affirmative action pick. They mention more than the GOP how her hispanic heritage gives her unique insight as a justice and is somehow relevant to her confirmation.
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p>I support Sotomayor and strongly believe the GOP is unfairly attacking her and taking her racial statements out of context-to their detriment. Yet I can’t help but fixate on the fact that in many ways this is an affirmative action pick since much more eloquent and brilliant but equally progressive legal minds were passed over-Cass Susstein and Diane Wood come to mind-because Obama had to get a minority women on the court.
I’m not sure what this means, really.
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p>The President has nominated a superbly qualified Justice with more judicial experience than both the previous two nominees combined.
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p>”Affirmative action pick” is often used pejoratively to mean picking someone who is barely qualified or less qualified just because they are Black, Hispanic, or female. The political party that nominated George Bush for President in 2000, Sarah Palin for Vice President in 2008, and put a race horse judge at the head of FEMA, might assert that she is under-qualified, but they don’t seem to care very much about qualifications do they? And what about those guys with whom they staffed the Iraq Provisional Authority?
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p>I think she’s only an “affirmative action pick” in the usual pejorative sense if we accept (very secretly) some sort of notion of inherent racial inferiority. Otherwise, given her qualifications and achievements, the accusation makes no sense.
“Affirmative action pick” is often used pejoratively to mean picking someone who is barely qualified or less qualified just because they are Black, Hispanic, or female. The political party that nominated George Bush for President in 2000, Sarah Palin for Vice President in 2008, and put a race horse judge at the head of FEMA, might assert that she is under-qualified, but they don’t seem to care very much about qualifications do they? And what about those guys with whom they staffed the Iraq Provisional Authority?”
It seems as if my sense humor makes my (otherwise disagreeable) comments more digestible for you.
I do not at all assail her qualifications on the bench, again I did say in that post I support her ascension to the high court. I was merely observing that every single Democratic Senator begins by praising her ‘historic nomination’ and her ‘uniquely American story’ i.e alluding to her Hispanic background and her being the first Latina SCOTUS nominee. They praise her background before they praise her qualifications.
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p>Also the Obama administration said upfront it wanted a woman on the bench. This automatically excluded incredibly talented and progressive legal scholars and jurists from the bench, Cass Susstein comes to mind. Similarly by going for a minority female he passed over Elena Kagan, Diane Wood, and Dean Karlan who, if you look at their records, are more openly progressive and have incredibly insightful and innovative ways of explaining the law and interpreting it.
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p>Sotomayor has really not ruled on a ton of substantial cases, at least the kind of precedence setting cases the SCOTUS has ruled on, and her opinions on a lot of key issues are unknown. I think the President decided to pick the most confirmable justice and the most politically correct pick as opposed to who would be the best advocate for progressive causes on the court. In that sense I would say he valued the political capital of nominating a female minority over the capital of nominating the most assertive and capable progressive jurist. Of course she could prove me wrong, but she will likely be another quiet liberal like the rest of the bench, and not another Brennan.
but there’s more to the story. Obama may gain political capital, but it’s possible that America will gain political capital too. Educational minorities (Hispanics, blacks, the poor, in many fields women, immigrants) benefit from seeing an extreme success from within the establishment.
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p>How do you decide which person would be the best SCOTUS judge, especially since it’s a player on a nine person team and you don’t know who that judge’s eight other teammates will be in 5, 10, 20, 30 years? Successful teams require tremendous skill, but not uniform skill — diversity is key to optimal performance. So, you make sure your new player has a minimum level of skill, and I’ve heard nobody suggest that Sotomayor doesn’t have that minimum level of skill. You make sure the person doesn’t poison the team’s dynamics, and there’s been no significant evidence that Sotomayor doesn’t play well with lawyers, judges, or staff.
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p>No decision happens in a vacuum, this one included.
The ideal appointment would have been a reincarnation of Justice Brennan whom Justice Kennedy found irresistibly dreamy.
Diane Wood has an incredibly good relationship with her Cirtcuit Court colleagues Richard Posner and Judge Easterbrook who are both fairly conservative. To be fair Judge Posner is a social liberal on most social issues, but still leans to the right on most issues. She does a great job convincing them to side with her, and combating them in her decisions when they do disagree in a way that boldly asserts the progressive side of the law. Sotomayor could be that judge and I have high hopes she will be, but based on her testimony and previous decisions she seems to be reasoned, rational, but also dull and calm-much like Souter. But Souter gets outshone by Scalia time and time again.
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p>And it just seemed based on their writing that Susstein, Kagan, and Karlan had a much broader and rigorous intellectual tradition. With a 60 seat majority in the Senate, Obama could have afforded playing hardball with an assertive and powerful pick. Instead he played softball and picked someone who, aside from the historic nature of her nomination due to her race and gender, is relatively mild and inoffensive and easy to confirm. I suspect most Republicans on the committee will vote for her and she can join Ginsberg and Breyer amongst the mildly dull liberals on the court.
Basically Obama’s big problem is that he wants to govern in a bi-partisan way but he has no incentive to do so, and doing so actually hurts his agenda and he can pass most of it without having to differ to a minority party. Elections have consequences, and if the American people really believed that they needed a check on the Democratic majority they would have elected McCain.